Drum brakes question

[My Nameis]

Hi guys I had my rear drum brakes replaced about a month ago. All new hardware, shoes, drums.

Now my rear passenger ones are making a clicking noise at very low speeds.

Took the drum off to examine and noticed the front shoe had very minimal play at the tension spring (spring that holds the shoe against the backing plate)

The other shoe didn’t have this play at all. Now my question is, how tightly held in place to the backing plate should the shoes be? Does a little play matter or?

Topic

[My Nameis]

[quote=”Bonnieman” post=174386]Originally you said: [quote=”myfavecoupe_” post=168903]Hi guys I had my rear drum brakes replaced about a month ago. All new hardware, shoes, drums.

Now my rear passenger ones are making a clicking noise at very low speeds.
[/quote]
That gave me– and probably everyone else –the impression that this problem started with the new rear brakes.

Since the noise went away when the brakes were first replaced and freshly adjusted, I would recommend rechecking the adjustment to see if the adjustment is out.
Using the parking brake every time you park should keep the shoes adjusted but, if the mechanism sticks due to lack of lubrication of the star adjuster , they may not be able to maintain it.

I hope the service manual advised you to first adjust the brake shoes immediately prior to adjusting the parking brake.
Since the FSMs are written for techs, they may have omitted that detail, assuming you would already know to do that.[/quote]

Yes I had forgotten why I had them replaced and once the noise returned I remembered. Chalked it up to it’s been well over 100k and they’re due.

I’ve adjusted them multiple times. I got each tire to make one full revolution with slight pressure to make them spin. And yes I did that first before adjusting the ebrake.

According to the service manual it needs to engage within 6-9 clicks and mine was engaging within 3-4 and making a creaking sound like it was too tight even when readjusting at the brakes themselves.

Now the creak sound is gone and it fully engages with 6 clicks.

The star adjuster moved pretty freely when I was manually adjusting it and didn’t seem jammed at all. So I’m completely stumped

[Mike]

Since everything has been replaced and lubricated and adjusted in the rear brake system, there are only 2 additional possibilities that spring to mind:

1) The parking brake is sticking.
A common issue as cars age, especially in areas that use road salts every winter.
With the parking brake on, jack up the rear .
Release the brake and try to turn each wheel.
If you feel unexpected drag or the wheel is very difficult/impossible to turn, then it would confirm a sticking parking brake cable.

2) Wheel bearing beginning to fail.
Not unusual for a clicking sound to come from failing bearings and not unusual for bearings to be coming to the end of their usable time after more than 100K miles.
Often, when you place a hand on the fender as you spin the wheel, you can feel a vibration that’s coming from the failing bearing.
You could replace 1 side and see if your clicking has vanished before jumping in and changing the other.

[My Nameis]

[quote=”Bonnieman” post=174404]Since everything has been replaced and lubricated and adjusted in the rear brake system, there are only 2 additional possibilities that spring to mind:

1) The parking brake is sticking.
A common issue as cars age, especially in areas that use road salts every winter.
With the parking brake on, jack up the rear .
Release the brake and try to turn each wheel.
If you feel unexpected drag or the wheel is very difficult/impossible to turn, then it would confirm a sticking parking brake cable.

2) Wheel bearing beginning to fail.
Not unusual for a clicking sound to come from failing bearings and not unusual for bearings to be coming to the end of their usable time after more than 100K miles.
Often, when you place a hand on the fender as you spin the wheel, you can feel a vibration that’s coming from the failing bearing.
You could replace 1 side and see if your clicking has vanished before jumping in and changing the other.[/quote]

I’ll have to test for wheel bearing but why would it only make the noise when the brakes are applied? And why wasn’t the noise there when rear brakes were replaced?

I thought it might be the parking brake that’s why I adjusted it as well. With both tires in the air, the parking brake was stopping tires from rotating at the first click and would stop fully after 3-4 clicks.

Honda manual said first click should only create a slight drag in tire rotation and fully engaged with 6-9 clicks, so I adjusted it to do that by loosening the adjusting nut enough to where the tires dragged at the first click and fully engaged at 6 clicks.

This made the parking brake easier to engage as before it seemed to have a lot of tension.

[My Nameis]

Btw the drag you hear while spinning the tire, is it supposed to be uninterrupted? With mine the drag is every about half a turn. Wonder if drums are warped

[Mike]

[quote=”Bonnieman” post=174386]Since the noise went away when the brakes were first replaced and freshly adjusted, I would recommend rechecking the adjustment to see if the adjustment is out.
Using the parking brake every time you park should keep the shoes adjusted but, if the mechanism sticks due to lack of lubrication of the star adjuster , they may not be able to maintain it.[/quote]

As far as I know, the parking brake does not auto-adjust rear drum brakes. Drum brakes self-adjust by driving in Reverse and applying the brake pedal.

[Mike]

[quote=”myfavecoupe_” post=174435]Btw the drag you hear while spinning the tire, is it supposed to be uninterrupted? With mine the drag is every about half a turn. Wonder if drums are warped[/quote]
Yes, the slight drag should be even throughout the spin, so It’s a good possibility the drum is warped.
It can also be that the shoes were off center when you checked them, which can happen when you replace the shoes or remove and reinstall the drum.
The cure?
Reinstall the drum and then step on the brake pedal. The shoes should then re-center.
That’s when it’s best to check the rear shoe adjustment.
3 clicks to full lock on a parking brake seems a bit tight.
It’s possible that you adjusted the rear brakes with the shoes off center and then, when you adjusted the parking brake, that adjustment was compensating for somewhat out of adjustment brake shoes.
A too tight parking brake adjustment can cause the rear brakes to overheat.
Parking brake adjustment is not something that is usually necessary on the average car, unless a cable has been replaced..

[quote=”Evil-i” post=174467][quote=”Bonnieman” post=174386]Since the noise went away when the brakes were first replaced and freshly adjusted, I would recommend rechecking the adjustment to see if the adjustment is out.
Using the parking brake every time you park should keep the shoes adjusted but, if the mechanism sticks due to lack of lubrication of the star adjuster , they may not be able to maintain it.[/quote]

As far as I know, the parking brake does not auto-adjust rear drum brakes. Drum brakes self-adjust by driving in Reverse and applying the brake pedal.[/quote]

Then you really do not know enough about drum brakes to “correct” me, since I do know what I’m talking about…. and have provided a link to verify my earlier statement.
There are 2 types of drum brakes; servo and non-servo.
On non-servo drum brakes, using the parking brake adjusts the rear brakes.
Servo type drum brakes adjust when you apply the brakes when driving in reverse.
ETCG discusses both types here just before 21 minutes in the video

This vehicle is a 1998 Honda Civic, which has non-servo drum brakes, so the use of the parking brake is what keeps them in adjustment.
They do not self adjust by applying the brake when driving in reverse.

[My Nameis]

@Bonnieman before I adjusted the parking brake I started the car up and pressed on the brake pedal numerous times as suggested by the service manual. I still had the same 1-1 1/2 tire rotation before stopping using minimal force to spin. Also that same drag every half turn was the same.

[Mike]

Sounds like you’ve done the right things.
That would confirm an out of round drum.
Fortunately, they’re rather inexpensive drums.

[Timothy Salomon]

On all the trucks I’ve worked on, the drag was intermittent, maybe 1/2 of a rotation.

[My Nameis]

[quote=”Timothy S” post=174554]On all the trucks I’ve worked on, the drag was intermittent, maybe 1/2 of a rotation.[/quote]

That’s how mine are. So that’s right?

[Mike]

[quote=”Timothy S” post=174554]On all the trucks I’ve worked on, the drag was intermittent, maybe 1/2 of a rotation.[/quote]

If the shoes are new, are centered and the drums were true, the drag would not be intermittent.
Think about it, how and why would 2 brake shoes that are making contact on 2 points of the drum only make contact sometimes, unless the drum was not perfectly round?
Easiest way to tell is with a drum micrometer.
Measure the drum from 12 to 6 o’clock, then measure the drum from 9 to 3 o’clock.
If the measurements are not identical, then the drum is out of round.
Any auto parts store or machine shop that cuts drums & rotors should have a brake drum micrometer—or else they wouldn’t be able to tell you whether the drum was thick enough to be cut in the first place.

[My Nameis]

I noticed if I just use the ebrake without the brake pedal at the low speeds that I normally here the clicking noise, it doesn’t do it.

Could that help indicate what it could be?

[My Nameis]

Today noticed that the retaining pins are different lengths.

Aren’t they supposed to be the same size?

[IMG]http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160916/d7e1c6051849959fc5e436fce990b718.jpg[/IMG]

[Mike]

[quote=”myfavecoupe_” post=175736]Today noticed that the retaining pins are different lengths.

Aren’t they supposed to be the same size? [/quote]
Yes they are.

I had written this to you on September 1st

[quote=”Bonnieman” post=174340]If you didn’t already discard the original Honda clips and pins, I’d put those back on and see if the noise goes away for good.
Sometimes the aftermarket hardware isn’t quite up to par–which clearly seems to be the case as you’ve already noticed the poor spring clip tension.
If you’ve thrown them out already, get a set from Honda; they’re about $8 per side for 2 clips and 2 pins.
As for the lower spring, it shouldn’t make any difference but you have nothing to lose by reinstalling it.[/quote]

[My Nameis]

Thanks man. Don’t know how I missed the different lengths before.

Very curious if the longer one isn’t providing enough tension holding the pad to backing plate causing all this grief.

Will have to replace and test

[Author]

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